


no other love was meant to be mine

by ell (amywaited)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cold, Cute, Established Relationship, Existentialism, Fluff, Ice, M/M, Slice of Life, Weather, space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:53:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25118698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amywaited/pseuds/ell
Summary: “I will always be here,” Cecil says, “Always for you."“And yet you’re a million galaxies out of my league,” Carlos says. He moves closer to Cecil, until their breath mingles into golden shards between them.“I will always be someone you deserve,” Cecil murmurs.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Comments: 5
Kudos: 58





	no other love was meant to be mine

**Author's Note:**

> title from [heavenly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef1B764t3XQ) by grant-lee phillips.
> 
> enjoy!!

Night falls early, and Night Vale is, for once, cold and quiet. Carlos folds himself into the corner of the couch and watches the stars flickering out the window, dulled only slightly by the streetlamps (which are glowing an ominous sort of radioactive blue). Space has always seemed so much brighter in Night Vale, close enough to touch, with a more real tangibility. Carlos knows comfort beneath it, and he revels in the otherworldly light the planets bestow upon the town.

Cecil looks like he fits in perfectly in it. He’s standing in the garden, staring up at the clouds and what little of the moon is visible between them, drowning in the blue from the streets and the white-silver from the sky. It slides over his body and sinks right into his skin, curling into him so beautifully that it’s like coming home. A light at the end of the tunnel. His hair is bright and his skin dark, and Carlos feels like he’s seeing something he shouldn’t be.

He can see Cecil’s breath hanging in the air, coils of condensation twisting their way into the atmosphere. Carlos almost wishes he could join them, wishes he could twirl his way around Cecil too and pushes his way under his skin. He doesn’t.

Instead, he wiggles his toes under one of the couch cushions and watches Cecil from afar. He feels almost unworthy, like he’s not enough to even perceive Cecil. Like his eyes won’t compute him properly, won’t do him justice in his mind’s eye.

Sometimes he wonders what Cecil might look like on the other planes of existence. Whether he would have wings, or horns, or ribbons of light and dark spiralled around him. He wonders if he’d think Cecil more beautiful if he could see him truly, or if it’s enough to just have him like this.

Cecil turns towards the back door, peering through it. His gaze latches onto Carlos immediately, digging deeper and deeper into his soul. His presence slides right in like it totally belongs, and Carlos lets him.

The back door opens. The glow from the streetlamps and the sky light Cecil up from behind, setting his silhouette against icy air. Cecil’s hands are shaking, but his smile is wide and exhilarated and happy.

“It’s cold,” he informs Carlos. He steps inside the threshold, letting all the cold air flow in around him. “In Night Vale. It’s cold.”

“It is,” Carlos agrees, “and you’re letting all the hot air out. Shut the door. Come here.”

Cecil closes the door, and Carlos relishes in the click-shuck as the lock engages. “Ice in Night Vale means something, dove,” Cecil says. He leans over the back of the couch to press a kiss to Carlos’s forehead, and his lips are raw. 

“You’re freezing,” Carlos says. He reaches up to hook his hands around the back of Cecil’s neck, one gravitating to his nape and the other to the crook of his shoulder. He pulls Cecil closer, and closer still, leaning in to kiss him properly. He imagines he can thaw Cecil’s lips with his own, taking all of the bitter frigidity from Cecil’s body into his.

“Mmh,” Cecil says against Carlos, in distracted agreement. He only breaks away to climb onto the couch beside Carlos, before sliding up next to him until they could almost be inhabiting the same body. Carlos doesn’t think he’d even mind that much. 

Cecil’s hands find their way to Carlos’s cheeks, pressing cold fingers behind his ears, and Carlos pulls away to breathe out a laugh. “Your hands are so cold,” he says, moving his own to press on top of Cecil’s. “You shouldn’t have stayed out there for so long. You’ll get frostbite.”

“Frostbite wouldn’t hurt me,” Cecil says, and it’s murmured so lightly, so wonderfully truthfully, that Carlos believes him. Cecil has long since been immune to such trivialities, and Carlos almost has to run to catch up.

“Of course not,” he says. Cecil’s nose brushes against his. “Tell me about the cold.”

Cecil swallows, and inhales. Cecil knows that he would give his oxygen for Cecil in a heartbeat. “Okay. Once every few years, we get a visit from the ice. It always starts when the temperature drops, and of course, we’re in the desert. We don’t usually get anything below seventy, you know. It’s like a holiday.”

“I don’t like it,” Carlos says. “I can’t feel my toes.”

“No,” Cecil agrees. He sounds reverent, and in awe. “I can’t feel mine either.”

Carlos laughs properly this time. He feels his heart thrumming steadily beside Cecil’s. “Then why did you spend so long outside?”

“To welcome it,” Cecil says. He sighs, and his breath is warm as it slides over Carlos’s cheeks. His body seems to sink further into Carlos’s, pressing in closer until Carlos thinks they could almost be one and the same. Cecil leans in to kiss Carlos again, and Carlos imagines Cecil’s lungs are melting beneath him.

“You look good in it,” he says. “Under the night. Under the ice. It suits you. Like you fit right in.”

“Does it?”

“Yeah,” Carlos nods. He feels Cecil’s hands tighten slightly on his face, pulsing all his love into Carlos’s pores.

Cecil’s smile is deliciously warm in contrast to the temperature. “It suits you too, you know. You’d look beautiful under any sky.”

“Don’t turn this on me,” Carlos says. His voice wobbles, frozen halfway in the middle. “You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe you’re even real sometimes, that I get to hold you. That you even exist for me.”

Cecil falls silent, smiling even wider as he strokes his thumbs along Carlos’s under-eyes.

“I keep expecting you to just disappear on me,” Carlos continues. His words escape with a quality of candour, freezing midair as Cecil listens to them. “I don’t understand how you could be so otherworldly and perfect and… and here.”

“I will always be here,” Cecil says, “for you. Always for you. And there are hundreds of thousands of things that you deserve, and will always deserve.”

“And yet you’re a million galaxies out of my league,” Carlos says. He moves closer to Cecil, until their breath mingles into golden shards between them.

“I will always be someone you deserve,” Cecil murmurs. “Fate is, after all, excessively powerful. It wouldn’t do to question her.”

Carlos inhales. Exhales. Time passes and stalls in equal measure. Fate is there, and the ice melts, and Cecil holds onto his heart for him.

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like all my slice of life cecilos fics have the same premise and mostly consist of filler. like, plot? who? mostly i wrote this because the visual my brain commands of cecil beneath the moon/in the cold is one that i cant think about enough.
> 
> would love to hear ur thoughts, if u fancy leaving a comment.
> 
> thank u <3 take care


End file.
